How to Navigate Google Business Profile’s New “In Search Experience”
Once again Google has made changes to the Google Business Profile management dashboard. Business owners will have to adjust to a new process for managing their GBPs.
Here is the latest on how to navigate the Google Business Profile dashboard. It is quite different from what it used to be.
Once you log into your account, if you just have one profile to manage, the process to access it is simple. You are taken directly to the “in search experience”, which looks like this:
Below we’ve laid out how to navigate the new “in search experience”.
Edit Profile
Here you can manage all the basic details about your business. Business name, category, phone number, website, location, service area, business hours.
Note: For service area businesses, in the previous GBP dashboard you would need to manually clear the address so that it would be removed from the maps. In this new search experience, you’ll see an option like this, where you will turn that field off, so the business address isn’t visible.
Read Reviews
From this option, you can access all the customer reviews on your GBP and respond to them.
Messages
From here, you can either turn your SMS alerts on or off and manage the rest of your chat settings:
There are other chat settings that can be adjusted within “chat settings”:
Add Photo
From this field, you can add your photos, logo, and cover photo.
Performance
From the performance option, you access analytics on your GBP’s performance. This feature was the “Insights” feature in the prior GBP dashboard.
Advertise
This option will direct you to the Google Ads platform where you can build and run an Ads campaign if you’d like.
Edit Products
From here you can highlight any products you sell or promote.
Edit Services
In this section, you can manage a more detailed list of the services you provide.
Booking
Here you can link any online booking tools you would like to use on your GBP.
Quote Requests
This feature allows your customers to directly request a quote from your GBP.
Calls
This feature shows you your call performance or your call history.
Then when you click on the down arrow next to Calls from your menu, you’ll see additional options,
Q & A
This is the question and answer feature allowing you to connect with your customers via GBP.
Add Update
From here you can add Posts, either an update, offer or event. Just choose which type of update you’d like to add and complete the fields prompted.
Ask for reviews
From here you can capture the link to your GBP to make it easier for you to refer your customers to your GBP to leave a review. You can also send the link directly from here to an email address or other platforms such as WhatsApp or Facebook.
Other Management Tools and/or Settings
Some additional management options which aren’t so obvious can be found by clicking on the 3 dots found here:
Business Profile Settings
Business Profile Settings is where you would need to access your user management, Google assistant codes, see profile ID, remove business profile options, and link accounts such as Ads or Merchant Center.
Notifications
From here, you can manage you you wish to receive notifications from multiple fields shown below:
Adding or Managing More than One Profile
If you are managing more than 1 GBP from your account, or want to add a new GBP, then you would select “Add a New Business Profile” or to manage another GBP, select “Your Business Profiles” to see your others.
The last 3 options include Help & Support, Send Feedback, and Terms of Service.
Verifying GBP
If you’ve just created your GBP and you were waiting for a PIN code, once you receive the code, you will see this screen,
You’ll want to click on Enter code to enter your PIN code and verify the profile.
If you look at your menu from your in-search experience and you see this
Then you’ll want to click on “Get verified” and complete your GBP verification via the method you’ve been prompted.
Note: If you’re prompted to use the video verification method, please refer to this blog for help in completing the verification, /blog/new-process-for-google-business-profile-verification-with-video-2
